Bethlehem - Checkpoint 300

General situation; Yom ha Shoah and hot

Checkpoint in the tunnel road

 

After we had heard about some cases of bad treatment of Palestinians, who were using bus no.21 to Jerusalem and got humiliated   at the big checkpoint in the tunnel road,  we decided to take the same bus. So we crossed the checkpoint Bethlehem 300, took a taxi to a bus stop and then the bus no.21. There were at 17:30 o'clock only 12 passengers in the bus. All of them had to get out while we,  the non Palestinians,  could remain beseated (usually in an Arab bus I am getting out with the Palestinians, but here we wanted to observe how this control was handled). A soldier came to check our papers. He took out one piece of luggage, for an extra check. The Palestinians stood outside, most of them young Muslim women (looked like students),  with blue IDs in their hands. After they were checked (I couod not see how) everybody was entering the bus and the driver could continue. The whole procedure lasted about 10 minutes.

We intend to integrate this checkpoint into our observation tour. It's easy to get there by car . Around the checkpoint the  zone is  zone C

 

Checkpoint Bethlehem Checkpoint 300

We were observing there at about 18 o'clock. Two counters were open. People came by bus. Most of them looked as if coming from office jobs. No tourists. Fast control of papers and fingerprints